US net gas imports drop as production hits record volume

Published 5:37 am, Friday, May 30, 2014

HOUSTON — U.S. net imports of natural gas fell 14 percent in 2013, as preliminary data showed domestic production of dry gas hit a record high, according to a new federal report.

The nation imported a net 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2013, the lowest volume since 1989, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Most of the decline hit imports of liquefied natural gas, which largely arrive by sea. Those shipments fell by 45 percent to 97 billion cubic feet. Pipeline imports dropped by 6 percent to 2.8 trillion cubic feet.

The EIA noted that about 97 percent of U.S. natural gas imports come from Canada. Booming production from the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast U.S. has displaced some of the need for those shipments. The eastern U.S. experienced the sharpest decline in the amount of natural gas piped from Canada, falling 12 percent between 2012 and 2013. Imports from Canada to the western U.S. was relatively stable, the EIA said.

Imports have been declining since 2007, when the U.S. shale drilling boom began unleashing a glut of natural gas onto the market. The country produced 24.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2013, the highest volume on record, according to preliminary data from the EIA.

Mexico gas market

Meanwhile, U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico doubled between 2009 and 2013. In 2013, those exports rose by 6 percent to a record 658 billion cubic feet, the EIA said.

“Relatively low natural gas prices in the United States and increased natural gas demand in Mexico for power generation and industrial use likely contributed to the pipeline export increases to Mexico,” the EIA wrote. “In 2013, two pipeline projects went into service that increased the capacity to export natural gas to Mexico by 551 million cubic feet per day.”

Mexico’s national energy ministry projects that U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico will more than double again by 2018, to 3.8 billion cubic feet per day. That growth is exepcted to be driven largely by growing demand from private and independently operated power plants. The EIA says natural gas consumption is projected to grow by nearly 8 percent a year to 4.9 billion cubic feet per day in 2027.

However, total U.S. natural gas exports to all countries fell by 3 percent in 2013 to 1.6 trillion cubic feet.